By M. Giant | Aired on 2010.01.17
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.For once, Kiefer is having a great day. I mean, he's not dead, to start with, so it's already better than expected. But on top of that, he's happily bonding with his new granddaughter in New York, and he's looking forward to moving back to L.A. to be with Spawn and the Spawntones. But of course we already know this is all doomed from the get-go, even before one of Kiefer's old snitches shows up at his door warning of a planned assassination attempt. The target: a Middle Eastern president in town to sign a treaty with President Taylor at the U.N. And now it's up to Kiefer to shepherd the informant into CTU custody. This is of course problematic for several reasons, chief among them being that the assassins want Kiefer's informant dead, and have already gotten a good start on getting that done. So of course Kiefer finds himself in a firefight within the first hour, one the bad guys don't survive. But when the bad guys' boss brings in the big guns, neither does the informant.
And that's just the A-plot. As usual, there's a whole lot going on. CTU New York is up and running, under the supervision of Brian Hastings (Mykelti "Bubba" Williamson). His staff includes field ops boss Cole Ortiz (Freddie Prinze, Jr.), Cole's fiancée and floor boss Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff, playing an eerily efficient glamazon), hygiene-challenged tech nerd Arlo, and some new chick who doesn't know how anything works yet, name of Chloe O'Brian.
Plus there's the currently single President Taylor and her new Chief of Staff Rob, working with Ethan, who's been promoted to Secretary of State. They're busily negotiating with the aforementioned Middle Eastern leader, President Hassan (Anil Kapoor), who seems to be making this a family business. He's got a hot-headed, long-haired brother who tries to keep him away from an American reporter (Jennifer Westfeldt); a wife who hates him for reasons we don't yet know, and a devoted daughter. So when the dying words of Kiefer's informant are that the assassin is someone on the inside, we're left wondering who it might be. At least until the final scene suggests it might just be that reporter. So far, so good.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Dude, this title sequence is starting to look like a period piece, y'all. But here's a switch: "The following takes place between 4:00 PM and 5:00 PM." Man, these character are going to be tired by this time tomorrow. And then Kiefer adds, with just a trace of a smile in that extra-warm velvet, "Events occur in real time." Yes, we missed you, too, sweetie.
The very thing we see is an aerial shot of Manhattan, looking downtown from somewhere over Central Park. The foreground is dominated by the Chrysler Building, the MetLife Building, the Empire State Building, and the name that kicks off the opening credits, "Kiefer Sutherland." In other words, whatever you think you know about New York City, this is Kiefer's town now. Fugheddaboudit.
Just to really drive home the New York-ness of all of this, a yellow cab pulls up to the curb and a Latino guy in a red hooded sweatshirt steps out. He pauses to raise his hood before looking around furtively, but that doesn't prevent a goateed man in a vacant lot across the street from observing, "It's him." He's apparently on earpiece to a rooftop sniper, who has the new arrival in his scope. But a passing delivery van cuts off the shot while the target ducks inside the building. "Stand by. We'll get him on the way out," the lookout assures the sniper. If they do, this is going to be a very short season.
Inside, the man in the red hoodie climbs the stairs, past strung-out hookers and a freebaser with long blond hair, before letting himself into a dark, grungy apartment and calling for someone named Manny. The only sound is the shower running in the bathroom, and the guy is shocked when he draws the curtain aside to find his roommate dead in the tub with a bloody hole in his forehead. It's either from a bullet or the water pressure in there is a lot more powerful than the surroundings would seem to indicate. He pulls out a gun of his own, then his cell phone. The woman he calls says the guy he wants to talk to is dead -- freshly shot in the head as well, although this one seems to have just gone down in a bodega somewhere. "What the hell is happening?" she asks, and he hangs up before he can wonder why she's spotting a pattern as well. He vacates the apartment, gun at the ready.
The lookout across the street spots a figure in a familiar red-hooded sweatshirt exiting, and calls it up to the sniper. As if that sweatshirt isn't already a matador's flag in the dingy, blue-gray light that is TV-ese for New York. The shooter is about to squeeze the trigger when the alert lookout calls it off -- it's the freebaser, and he has a new sweatshirt. But where's its original owner?